In pro-Palestine hub of Athens, Israeli buyers increase local resentment

Athens, Greece – Tonia Katerini, a 69-year-old architect, leaned into her computer, scrolling through the property contracts that she said are remaking her neighbourhood.Across Exarchia, the Athens district long known for its radical left-wing politics, flats are being bought up and turned into short-term rentals, pushing out the people who live there.For months, Katerini and a group of neighbours have been digitally mapping foreign purchases using public records, marking them with red dots.She zoomed out from her street on the map; it was a sea of red.The balcony doors of her flat, where she has lived since 1986, were open and noise from the cafes below drifted in past the plants and stacks of architectural plans.Her group says much of the money behind the rentals is Israeli; by their count, more than half of the area’s new company-run hotels and rentals .In a neighbourhood where Palestinian flags hang from balconies and solidarity slogans cover the walls, that has caused friction.On her own cobbled street, where the noise of arriving tourists rolling their suitcases wakes her in the morning, Israeli investors have bought two buildings, she said. The flat below hers belongs to one...